FROM THIS EPISODE

To reduce overcrowding in state prisons, counties are now required to take charge of parolees, recent convicts and those newly accused of non-serious, nonviolent, non-sex-related offenses. LA County will get the lions' share, starting the first of October. Will the state provide extra money? Does the County have a real plan? Also, LA Democrat Karen Bass hosts a traveling jobs fair for the Congressional Black Caucus. On our rebroadcast of today's To the Point, FEMA, disaster relief and the politics of climate change.

National unemployment is at nine percent, but among black Americans it's much higher. For blacks in California, it's 19.3 percent. The Congressional Black Caucus has been talking about job creation and the economy at job fairs and town halls in five cities around the country. LA Democrat Karen Bass is hosting the CBC event in Los Angeles tonight and tomorrow.

Hurricane Irene is the most recent in a string of natural disasters, including the tornado in Joplin, Missouri, flooding in Minot, North Dakota, drought in Texas and wildfires in the Southwest. President Obama is promising federal help to victims of Hurricane Irene, but the Federal Emergency Management Agency is running out of money and House Republican leaders say any new federal assistance will have to be paid for with cuts elsewhere in the budget. We hear about disaster relief in the short term and the long-term politics of global warming.

LA County Supervisors today took up a plan to put the beleaguered Probation Department in charge of state prisoners, parolees and those newly accused of non-serious nonviolent, non-sex-related offenses. They'll become the County's problem under a new state law to reduce overcrowding in state prisons. The law goes into effect in October. Robert Green, editorial writer for the Los Angeles Times, was at the hearing today. Susan Burton is founder and director of A New Way of Life Reentry Project, a nonprofit in South LA that works with formerly incarcerated women and girls.